To Guard the Eastern Gate
by SuperiorDimwit
Summary: "Sodom and Gomorrah. Hard to forget." To this day, Aziraphale's eyes will flash a certain hue of ice whenever Sodom and Gomorrah is used as an argument by certain people with pamphlets and posters. They think they know. They don't.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N  
**  
Hello everyone! Long time no see, as usual these days. Hope you all have been well!

So I'm back in the Good Omens fandom? It was pretty inevitable after the TV series dropped. Anyway, I'll put this here and wait for _TheToeOfSauron_ to come yelling at me in the comments. (It's that or I seek you out and pull you in here. Always in the same fandom, it's cosmic law.)

And while I wait, I'll advertise that there's a Good Omens bang that will drop in January-February 2020! It's going to be 250+ fics and there's _amazing _talent among the participants! A little intimidating, honestly. I'm contributing with a fic, too, which will be shortened to RRH because secrecy. It's a love-letter to the style of the Good Omens book, and it's frankly the most technically advanced thing I've ever written, but I'm loving every minute of it and if you're a fan of the book I hope you'll take the time to read it. It's also going to be the last fic I write for Good Omens. Sure, some miracle might strike me with blazing inspiration in the future, but right now I can't see myself composing anything better than RRH.

This fic is my attempt to put the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (and Admah, Zeboim, and Bela) into context because lord knows certain people like to reference Biblical stuff without context. So this is a retelling of Genesis 12-19, with the omission of a 13 year long timeskip because most stories flow better without 13 year timeskips.

Take care, all of you!

/ Dimwit

* * *

They had a saying, in Sodom, that the Eastern wind was always foul. That no good ever came from those who approached the city gates head-on.

Travellers and tradesmen had taken this to heart and went out of their way to approach the city from the North or South, where the guards atop the walls could sound their arrival to the keepers at the city gate. The gate itself faced East, a gaping mouth to permit the first rays of the sun to touch the temple colonnades in the city centre - or, if you will, a watchful eye searching the horizon for ill omens carried by the Eastern wind.

The first time Aziraphale had visited Sodom, he had to blink away the after-images of Eden. The clot of mirage greenery in the midst of the desert. The saffron yellow of sun-scorched bricks. The _walls_. Jericho boasted of its walls, two meters wide and five high, but Sodom's bore the sky itself on its battlements. He'd touched them, quietly, running his fingers over mud brick memories of a garden where winter and death didn't tread. He had reached the city gate - framed in grand mosaics of lions - and been swallowed in its shade, counted 40 steps before he emerged on the streets inside.

The city had preened in the sunshine, curled around the life and noise like a mother cat around her young. Even the most unassuming little street had its pottery artisan, its copper smelter, its click-clack of weaving looms where humans were bustling about to create goods for the marketplace. There _had _been young, too: blurred shapes trailing shrill shouts and laughter around the blocks, teaming up in little gangs that goaded each other on to climb trees and share the fruit they picked - or help a limping friend back home when he fell.

It had been on one such narrow little street that Aziraphale first met Keret, when he had asked the man if he knew the directions to any nice dining establishment. Keret had not missed a beat in telling him the best food he'd get in Sodom was his wife's mutton stew, and would he like to stay for lunch?

Keret was the kind of man history would recall in reliefs cracked by time: a man of fine features and finer fabrics, his beard groomed with scented oils. He had a light in his eyes that Aziraphale took an instant liking to. Being invited for lunch was a good start, naturally, but angels had a special affinity for love, after all; and Keret was brimming with it. Love for his city, for this day, for the world he lived in and wanted to embrace. Earth intrigued him, almost as much as it intrigued Aziraphale, and that was always a pleasant trait in a human.

Keret opened his home for him, a red door painted with symbols of good fortune. A carpet, thick and soft like moss, met Aziraphale's feet when he slipped out of his sandals. Keret's eagerness for life was present in the rich and varied furnishings of his home, where idols and old heirlooms sat side by side with new and exotic tapestries, carved chests and gilded furniture. It was cluttered, yes, and opulent. It smelled pleasantly of cinnamon, and it was positively drenched in love.

"Yassib! Hurriya! I brought a friend!"

"How nice!" A woman with big, brown eyes looked up from the embroidery in her lap. Every shade of the rainbow graced her dress, but none of them as radiant as her smile.

"Is it the drunkard from the shipyard?" came a much less enthusiastic voice from the adjacent room.

Beside him, Keret frowned.

"You said you liked Paebel!"

"Nothing wrong with _him_ \- it's the bits of old food stuck in his beard. How does that not make your stomach turn?"

"You're like an old picky ma," the woman remarked, in the tone of someone who is soft as a peach but harbors the same sharp, hard pit should one try to bite into it. "And you say it yourself: he brings the best stories. Anyway, this one looks quite the opposite of Paebel. Come out here and be sociable for once." She folded her embroidery on the chair and tucked the needle into the belt of her silks. Layers and layers of jewellery made the musical sound of rain on glazed roof tiles when she crossed the room to greet them. "Hurriya. Of Ammishtamru's line."

"The second priest of Astoreth," Keret added, and shone like he couldn't believe his luck even as it smiled at his face.

"M-mm the merchants of Aqhat's line donated quite generously to the temple." Hurriya steadied her hands against Keret's shoulders, a vine leaning on a tree, and rose up on her toes to welcome him with a kiss. "The gods reward the devout."

"And punish the blasphemers." A man plodded into the room with the air of someone who had just been roused from a pleasant nap he would rather go back to. He was not like the other two, lithe of shape, but broad and tall like a man from the mountains.

"Yassib, the bright moon that lights the dark hours of our lives." He and Keret kissed, and though Yassib's face remained displeased Aziraphale could sense the deep, soft thrum of love in his heart. "Who do you think Astoreth will smite for blasphemy first? Her or you?"

"Him." Hurriya's face had no room for doubt, filled to the brim as it was with her grin. "He's taller: closer to the heavens."

It didn't quite work like that, of course. Lightning struck the highest point. Heavenly smiting struck wherever angels aimed it, and with considerably greater force. Aziraphale didn't tell them that: he didn't get the chance to tell them much more than his name, for Keret had brought him to their home and they were greeting him as part of it, kisses and all.

"Aziraphale? Not a name I've ever heard. You must have travelled far."

They dined on bronze plates fine as mirrors; soft wheat bread dipped in milk and honey, fresh pomegranates, Hurriya's famed mutton stew with pulse and aromatic spices, and it was indeed the best meal Aziraphale could have gotten in all of Sodom. The attention left him quite flustered, and his tongue stumbled over the stories, but they seemed too intrigued to care. He told them of travels and faraway places, and sometimes places that were far away indeed but not in distance; he recalled days spent in the company of shepherds under the bare sky, and days in the luxurious baths and libraries of cities whose names they had never heard. He skirted the topic of his "work" quite expertly these days, but it had taken centuries of practice. When pressed on the matter, he told them he was a journeying scribe for the god of another faith.

The best thing about men like Yassib was that when something parted the clouds from their features, they really did shine like the moon.

"A scholar! Astoreth bless us!" He leaned eagerly across the table, almost dipping his beard into his bronze bowl. "I have two scrolls I have not been able to read. The script is Sumerian but the words make no sense, maybe you have come across-"

"I know that look, Yassib! Don't you hog him all to yourself!"

"Oh but I'd be most interested-" Nobody heard. Aziraphale had never quite adapted to the mores of cultures like the Canaanite, where conversation was a matter of speaking loud enough to be heard over everyone else who wanted to share their opinion.

"Let me have this one, for once! You can bring home tanners and drunk fishermen every day till Solstice, I won't say a word!"

"I don't bring guests _every _day!"

Hurriya and Yassib both gave him the sort of long look that makes silence seem very loud.

"He's always like this," Yassib confided in Aziraphale, as if Keret was not there to hear. "'Go buy some flour for bread, Keret', we say, and he comes back with some poor traveller and has forgotten all about the flour."

"Look who points out the hole in another's shoe while he walks barefoot himself! How many times have I told you to come, and you say yes, and half a candle later you're still bent over your scrolls and don't remember you even answered?"

The argument continued, as it does between experienced and skilled practitioners. Hurriya stayed out of it, but with the mirth of one who watches children play with sticks and pebbles. In the oddest way, despite the raised voices and the agitated gestures, there was a profound sensation of happiness around the table.

Everything quieted at a noise from the upper floor: the slurred inquiry of an actual child. Hurriya and Keret were out of their seats as one.

"You go pick him up, he likes you better," she said. "I'll get another bowl."

Keret returned with a child by his hand, a boy who was old enough to talk but young enough to find strangers too intimidating an audience.

"Ibiranu has nothing against guests," Keret assured when the boy hid his face against his thigh. "He's just more interested in the food right now."

"The boy knows his priorities." Hurriya chuckled and set a bowl of steaming stew on the table. "And if he knows them well enough he won't spill on his tunic. Right? Come here, you."

Ibiranu did spill. Almost as if he considered it a formality to be over with, so he could continue eating without worrying about it.

Yassib ushered Aziraphale into the study, leaving the other two to argue over whether boys or girls were worse at rebelling against their parents, and who Ibinaru got it from.

The study was not nearly as cluttered with things as the dining room, because Yassib had made it his mission to clutter it with papyrus and scrolls of animal skin. These were, without exception, more expensive than any of the other ornaments in the house. Temples and kings had scrolls. Libraries, to what extent they existed, had scrolls. For a civilian to own this quantity of works was extraordinary, and Aziraphale felt himself, too, brighten like a full moon.

"Oh, these are..." Not just any scrolls. Yassib was a collector, and such magpie minds tended to come with a fixation. "These are quite exquisite indeed..."

"Can you read them?"

"Yes." Aziraphale traced reverent fingertips over the diagrams and felt their power thrum up his arm: changed and incomplete as they were, they still echoed of a language that had been spoken before mankind was even a blueprint. "Yes, I believe I can, I... Were you thinking of using them? Or the interest is purely academical?" Academical, and no doubt blasphemous to their gods.

"They fascinate me." Yassib stroked the parchment reverently, close to Aziraphale's own fingers. "I would want to try it at least once. A minor sort, not dangerous, but I still want to take care that I know exactly what to do and how."

Many candles had burnt down by the time Aziraphale bid his hosts farewell and goodnight. He had translated the scripts for Yassib, and discussed so many more of the wonderful pieces he had in his collection. Had tried to counsel him against performing the rituals they contained, too. Many of them would not work, but the ones that would... Casting summons into the realm of the ethereal and occult was rather like fishing, but with 20 million spirits in the lake. Your reward depended on what you happened to have baited the hook with, what you had bound the hook to, and the current mood of the being you had just yanked through the void without asking permission, in the spiritual equivalent of slinging a rope around somebody's neck and dragging them off kicking and screaming.

Summonings tended to be rather unpleasant for the summoner, unless they really got all the protective measures down right.

* * *

"_The Eastern wind blew harsh__,_" Aziraphale thought tightly, when he stood before the gates of Sodom for the second time. He had approached from the South, yet the guards had not let him through before they had brusquely searched his knapsacks and questioned him on where he was from and what his business in the city was. There were twice as many of them as there had been eight years ago.

Aziraphale _always _attracted attention. No matter where he went there would be some aspect of his physical form humans wondered at, be it his stature, his eyes, his hair, or his utter inability to develop a tan. But the Eastern wind had blown for a good many years, and the human world changes so very fast. The citizens of Sodom had closed with its gates, had become crouched like stalking animals, and eyes followed him with a hostility that made the angel quicken his pace down the winding streets. There were none of the cheerful greetings he remembered from last time, no vendor asking him what he thought of the fine pottery or if he had ever tasted a fig as juicy as these. He passed by the same busy little potteries and metalworkers, but he also passed by houses that had been licked clean by flame, with tongues of soot still marring the windows and the smashed doorways.

There were no shrill shouts or songs in the streets. The absence of them weighed on him worse than the deserted homes, and he was almost grateful when a hurled date kernel narrowly missed his head: at least there still_ were _children there.

There had been war. News travelled slowly in those days, and by the time he learned of it the battles had been fought and lost long ago. The Five Cities of the fertile plains had stood together against the ever-hungry armies of Elam and her allies in the East, five kings against four. It should have been easy. Aziraphale had thought the armies would break like eggs dashed against the walls of Sodom, this city that sat on the riverbank as solid as a mountain. But even Eden's walls had not been able to protect those inside, and humans were clever. Cities can be stormed, and cities can be starved. Their armies had been defeated in the valley of Siddim, and all the crop fields and fishing nets lay outside Sodom's impressive walls. Seizing control over those, it was only a matter of weeks before the city surrendered her gate to King Kedorlaomer and his army.

When the pavement under his feet began to feel familiar, Aziraphale's steps slowed. As long as he didn't see the house, it would still be there. In memory. It would be warm, there would be bread and mutton on the table, there would be a little boy with stains all over his clothes. It would smell of cinnamon.

Aziraphale tugged his robes straight, smoothed creases that didn't exist. With a shaky breath, he urged his pace back to speed. Couldn't let himself stop. If he did, even for a moment, he might not resume walking.

"Yassib? Keret?" He tried to sound like he expected somebody to answer his knock. The house wasn't blackened, thank Heaven, but it could still be empty.

A small crack inched itself open, and then the whole door swung inward. Hurriya stared at him as if she had seen a ghost.

"Come in! What are you doing? Dressed like that?" She all but pulled him into the house, and scolded him as she did.

"How do you mean 'like that'? I've always dressed like this."

"Yes! Like a man of high standing! Splendid way to get yourself robbed and debauched and left in the gutter! Three men were assaulted out in the open street just yesterday, and you think you can walk around in that?"

Hurriya gestured about him as if he were her child and not her guest, pointed out everything wrong with his shoes and mantle and belt, and would probably have smacked him across the back of his head if he hadn't been so much taller than her. No jewellery pitter-pattered with her motions.

"Ma?" His voice was still a child's, but on the verge of the growth spurt that would make him a young man. Ibiranu peeped around the corner, looking distinctly like his mother with those big, alert eyes.

"It's fine, my lovelies, it's fine. I'll bring out some cheese and grapes. And wine. Come meet Aziraphale; I'm not sure you remember him."

She disappeared behind a cloth hung before the pantry and left Aziraphale awkwardly in the dining room. There were no plush carpets under his feet, he noticed. There were other things to note, too. Things the Eastern wind had swept away.

"You've grown a lot since last time," Aziraphale smiled, in the manner of someone who doesn't have natural rapport with children and knows it all too well. "Oh. Oh my dear, you definitely weren't around at that time. What's your name?"

After Ibiranu trailed a little girl on the kind of colt legs that have much running to do but not quite enough practice to do it without stumbling. She had colourful ribbons woven into her hair, and one ribbon end - already damp - securely tucked in her mouth. She eyed the visitor with a sceptical gaze.

"Are you old? You don't look old. Where's your beard?"

Ah. Always attracting attention, one way or another.

"Well, you see, beards are quite itchy, so I prefer to shave mine off. And I am rather a bit older than I look."

"I'm five," she relayed with great importance.

"And your name is...?" Hurriya coaxed with a smile as she balanced clay platters with cheese and grapes out to the table.

"Pigat!" she exploded with pride. Then she thought of something, and it must have been quite urgent, for she left Ibinaru's side and rushed to her mother. "Ma! If Azerafail is here, _he _can take me out!" She bounced and tugged at Hurriya's skirts with an energy Aziraphale hoped he would not be entrusted with in any way.

"Remember what I said, little sparrow of mine?"

Pigat sighed with as much exasperation as five-year-old lungs could fit: "When Keret and Yassib come back, they'll come with me out."

"_If _they have time," Hurriya reminded a very pouty little girl. "Now sit down and have some grapes, hm?"

Aziraphale ate with them, but the grapes were ash in his mouth. Hurriya retold the sacking of Sodom with none of her peach-sweet softness to temper the edges. He glanced at the children, wondering if they should hear such things so young.

"War does not spare children," she responded when he brought it up. "Of course I want to protect them, but I know that I can't. The only protection they have is knowing what could happen." Her fingers stroked a stray curl behind Pigat's ear. Held on to it perhaps a little longer than needed.

"The war is over," he offered, and felt how his words were ash, too. "Lost, I know, but - there's no need to march an army on a fortress that has already fallen. They might leave you alone."

And Hurriya's hard, sharp core glinted in her eyes, and she told him how the city had gone mad. How the Elamites had taken wealth and cattle and family, and broken what they did not take. It left wounds in people's minds, and each time the Easterners came to collect tribute, the gashes opened up again. Bled. Festered. Became foul, became warped. The whole city had warped with that bitter thirst for blood that had nowhere to go. They ganged up like jackals, prey turned predator, tore foreigners to the ground and bestowed the same hospitality foreigners had shown their city. Aziraphale ought to thank the gods he had made it to their door in one piece.

Yassib and Keret had changed, too. Keret walked with a limp, a kindliness bestowed on him by an Elamite soldier when the city was taken. Their clothes weren't the bright colours of a flower garden but the earthen hues of men who did not own private libraries or come from prominent merchant families.

"Elamites come for the wealthy," Keret explained between the grape seeds he spat out. He was making a little pile on the table, and Yassib was glaring at it with scathing disapproval. "They come for the wealthy _first _and then everybody else, so there's no difference in the end. Sodomites don't see it that way, not like that; it's the responsibility of the wealthy, they think, to chase them out of the city. As if we could pay our tributes _and _pay for an army."

"Not an army, you bean pod," Yassib muttered and turned his attention to Aziraphale. "They want us to refuse to fund _their _armies via our tributes. They think we're bending like grain in wind. Maybe we are, but bending is better than breaking. I'd rather _give _them my wealth than have them-"

"_I _wouldn't mind cracking the skull of an Elamite or two. If I got the chance." Hurriya had murder in her eyes. Half a chance, and she would do it. "As for these _so__-__called _rebels, I'd have their eyes and tongues first, then their heads."

"Hurriya-"

"Have you heard them, Yassib? _Justice_, they call it, but is that not just revenge that thinks too highly of itself? Is it justice when we find innocents naked and bloody in the streets at sunrise?"

"It's not justice," the scholar agreed, but with reservation. "It's powerlessness. They have to do something with their anger and they do the only thing they can do, against the only people they can get to. It's-"

"Against the only people they can get to - call us what we are, Yassib. We're women."

"It's not just women who-"

"Have you heard the stories that go around? Have you heard many won't leave their homes anymore even with company?" Her eyes were black, darker than black, and her hands made fists on the table. "While others sharpen the points of their hair pins. Perhaps we should start another war, so our _rebels _can have actual enemies to attack."

"Ma, can I go out...?" Pigat asked in a small voice that did not, under any circumstances, want to give the impression she was scared.

"I'll go with you, little sparrow." Keret rose with some effort, muttering under his breath about becoming an old man needing a walking stick.

"I can help keep an eye out." Ibiranu didn't like the harshness of the conversation any more than his sister did but he was older, was soon to be a man of the house, and he had appearances to keep up. "Please?"

Keret cast a glance at Hurriya, and smiled softly at what he saw in her face. "An eye and two good legs, I suspect. This old man can't carry your sister if she trips and falls."

"I don't fall!" the little one shot back with a scowl the spitting image of Yassib's.

"Be careful, my loves. If anything happens to them I'll break your other leg, Keret."

"And take your trash with you, you barbarian!" Yassib threw a pinch of the grape seeds after Keret, who blew them both a kiss as he closed the red door behind him.

"You know he does it only because it annoys you."

"I know." The unusual spark of activity in Yassib dimmed back down. "And they _are _starting another war," he murmured with gloom in his voice. "Whether they realise it or not. Their acts of petty rebellion give us bad reputation, scare off the merchants. Elam will have to do something about that if they wish to keep milking the territory for riches. Maybe they'll clear out the city for good, sell us all as slaves when we have nothing else to pay with."

"I'll die fighting, then."

Yassib sighed. A rare smile crossed his face, fond but weighed down at the eyes, as he put his hand over Hurriya's clenched fist. "I don't doubt that."

Aziraphale abhorred war. He abhorred talking about it, thinking about it, witnessing it. There had been so many now, each as terrible as the other, a new one brewing on the horizon before the first one had sunken into the ground. And all he could do about it was offer a peaceful passing to the wounded and dying. It wasn't much. It wasn't _enough_, not when he had failed to guard them in Eden and failed again to guard them on Earth.

And maybe he blessed the food to taste a little bit richer, a little bit fresher.

Maybe, when they bid each other goodbye, he laid a blessing on their home, that at least within that one house, there would be peace.

* * *

The third time Aziraphale came to Sodom, he missed the war by mere hours. There were no guards at the gate to question him. The forty paces through it were a hundred, a nightmare walk sloshing and stinking with spilled guts and twisted limbs.

He ran through the streets. There was barely air enough to breathe in all the smoke, the sting of it searing his lungs and blinding his eyes. Several times he almost tripped where the ground was littered with broken furniture, pottery, and things he'd rather not look at. All things not valuable enough for pillaging. He cried. He cried as the world around him cried, the city ringing with shouts like one gaping, stone walled grave - names, so many names torn from raw throats, so much love rent with grief it struck him almost to his knees.

He found Keret on the ground outside their home, caked with dust and blood and wrapped so tightly around Ibiranu's bent body neither of the two could move except shake, wracked with sobs and wails.

"Keret! Ibiranu! Are you hurt?!"

They were, and they were healed, but whether they were healed or hurt mattered nothing to them because the soldiers had taken Yassib, Hurriya, and Pigat.

Aziraphale abhorred war.

The humans had begun clearing the streets by the time Aziraphale left Sodom. Fires still burnt around the city, casting wobbly shadows over those who waded in and out of the gate: dragging corpses for burning, if they were Elamites, or for burial, if they were Sodomites. You could hardly tell the difference between the faces of the dead and the faces of the living.

He cried. The world bled pain, never-ending pain that no amount of tears could ease. His throat ached with it, their cries for mercy, ached with the memory of war upon war as he once more had to watch Death do his work while he did - nothing. No flaming sword to give away. No miracle big enough to fill the void of their loss.

He could chase after Kedorlaomer and force him to release the captives. Aziraphale pictured it, just for a moment, as the irrational fantasy it was. Because then what? It would be the biggest miracle he had ever performed, Heaven would investigate, there were no orders and no indication of demonic meddling to justify his intervention-

Unless there were.

He knew of a demon who was very creative with meddling. Perhaps even creative enough.

Perhaps. It would be enough. Enough for the chaos to dull on his ears, enough for what little oxygen the air offered to breathe life into the idea Aziraphale's mind had sparked. He squared his shoulders. Steadied his breath, once, twice - he didn't need it, but his body needed a reminder who was in charge of this host.

"Right." He reached down and pulled the sword from a fallen city guard.

It would have been easier if he had known Crawly's Name. All beings mortal and immortal had one, were created from one the same way everything came into being through the Word. The Fall had... complicated things. Yet, at the end of the day, shreds of a Name were still a Name. But to ask for that had seemed far too... forward. Crawly would probably not give it to him anyway. There would be a sarcastic remark about using it to bind him like a dog, and what demon in their right mind would give up something like that to an angel of all beings? No, he would have to do this the cumbersome way.

Aziraphale walked the packed dirt road out of the city until he found a crossroad. A glance at the sky told him the moon had reached the position of Venus. Not optimal, but it would have to do. He blessed the sword in his hand - still flecked with blood, he noticed with a pained twinge, but that would help make up for all the steps of preparation he bypassed.

Aziraphale had advised Yassib against the use of summoning rituals. There were so many things to them that could go terribly wrong, and humans weren't supposed to know of such rituals in the first place. Strictly speaking, Aziraphale wasn't supposed to know many of those either, but minds are curious and scriptures are there to be read and... how else was one supposed to get hold of a demon when you needed one?

Most of the measures could be skipped if you were an angel. Things like fasting and spiritual purification were to ensure that humans would be protected from the demon's influence; the prescription of a certain dress code was an entirely demonic addition. Something about not adding insult to injury with lack of style.

Aziraphale strongly doubted that Crawly would turn him down for wearing the wrong shoes, but miracled his attire extra white and clean regardless.

With the sword he drew three circles on the ground, each embracing the other. Then two squares around the circles, locking them with all the sigils needed to call and to restrain whatever he summoned. When all was done, he tossed the sword aside and put his palms together.

Well then. Without a Name to call, he would simply have to call upon Crawly's form. He drew it in his mind, as he would draw the shape of a miracle before willing it into being. Tall. Made of sinews and disjointed bones. His eyes, sulphur yellow and sharp like the skin of lemons. The edges of his chin and his cheeks, like canyon rocks carved by water, and the curve of his eyebrows that softened their hard angles. His nose, just slightly hooked - he had looked more a bird of prey than a snake, that time on the wall, when he shed his serpent form. That curious line of his lips that refused to be caught still, always filled with questions. Oh, and his hair, like a living thing of its own - more than once, when Aziraphale joined humans around their campfires, his gaze had idled in the flames and seen Crawly's striking curls.

The diagram compressed, as if the air had been sucked out of it and new had to rush in to fill the void: and with it came a burst of unholy fire.

"State thy name, pitiful mortal, who summons the Archduke of Hell!"

"Archduke?" Aziraphale tried his best to fan the smoke out of his face. "Since when do you have a title?"

"Ngk," said the sprawl of beastly limbs and... _things_.

There was a ripple, as if somebody had tossed a pebble in a pond, and it assumed the more familiar Crawly shape. A Crawly shape that squinted.

"Is that you, Aziraphale? What happened to your face?"

"Oh. Ah, bit of a..." He wiped at his eyes, and only smudged more soot over his face.

"That's not really..."

"Bit of a... war. Rather. Yes, a war. Awful business. Listen, uh, Crawly." He cleared his throat, just to be sure his words didn't catch. "There were a lot of people captured, and I could use your, your - advice, as it were, to get them back."

"My advice," repeated Crawly, who would really have liked something more intelligent to come out of his mouth. "Shouldn't you be asking your superiors?" He would have words with his brain about this. Later.

"I called you to answer questions, not ask them." Aziraphale knew he sounded tetchy. He knew he should have gone to his side first. He most definitely knew he wasn't supposed to ask the Other side for help, and he did not want to discuss either of these things.

"Oh." Crawly folded his arms. "Here I thought you called me 'cause you're in trouble and wanted someone who's got lots of experience with that." Just a guess, really. Angels weren't exactly in the habit of calling up demons unless things had gone to hell already. Hell could always be trusted with the dirty work.

"I'm not-" His lips pressed together in a thin line. "I _could _get in trouble but I want to avoid it. That's your area of expertise, no?"

Crawly pondered, as he had pondered during their chat on the wall of Eden, whether Aziraphale fully understood the implications of Falling.

"How about we, uh..." His hands sketched an abstract outline in the air. Possibly of the considerable lump of sassy comebacks he'd just had to swallow. "Consider the, the odds of you getting in trouble. I mean there's two ways to go here. You either do something your superiors disapprove of, or you do something you were advised to do by a demon, which they will also disapprove of. Yeah. That. I'm here 'cause you need a scapegoat, is that what this is? 'Cause that's not gonna work, angel. If you're that susceptible to demonic influence they'll pull you from Earth in a heartbeat and reassign you to counting how many times humans take God's name in vain."

"That's precisely why I called on you," he pressed on urgently, and didn't seem aware how his fingers fretted each others' nail beds. "They can't find out I did _anything_, not with you and not with the humans."

"So you wanna make the humans do something about it?"

"Yes!"

"Then why summon a demon? Why not just go give them a nudge?"

Aziraphale looked - and felt - like he was going to explode.

"How am I supposed to do that?! They have no troops, they have no weapons! Not without divine intervention! I'm an angel, Crawly, I was made for loving humans, not for thinking up schemes to trick them! That's what your lot does!"

Crawly's brain was exceptionally bad at being a brain today. Because yes, angels were made to love, sure, but how many of them did? How many of them ever wrung their hands, stained with blood, and were desperate enough to help that they didn't care where help came from?

The angel didn't notice Crawly's dumbstruck staring. That was saying something, because Crawly couldn't recall he had stared on this level of staring since Aziraphale had given his sword away. But the angel didn't notice, because he was _very _preoccupied not noticing that he was weaving his way around Heavenly policy in a way that wasn't _quite _disobedience, but wasn't quite anything else either.

Crawly blinked an uncharacteristic amount as he tried to imagine that he had a brain. And a tongue. And the ability to speak.

"Well I'm - good at trouble. The best, I dare say. Big trouble, small trouble, any kind of trouble you need. To avoid."

"And your advice?" Aziraphale said tightly.

"Dunno," he said flippantly. It was true, he didn't know. But he said it mostly because Aziraphale attempted to look like a gracious angel giving a demon the great honour of being spoken to: Crawly would much rather speak to a peeved angel giving a demon the great honour of pointed glaring. "Tell me the situation, give me things to work with. Who captured people? From where? Why? That sort of thing."

"Well, ah..." He cleared his throat and folded his hands as if preparing to give one of those official reports to Heaven. "King Kedorlaomer and his army came to the, the Five Cities to quell an uprising. They've occupied the territory for the past 13 years, as I'm sure you are aware, and they have been quite terrible rulers. I just came from Sodom and the city is- is-" Something raw, something that had been stuck in his throat since he entered the city, dislodged and poured out. "They're making an example of it, Crawly, they've burnt the city and captured people's families and they-"

"Sodom?" Crawly's eyebrows made an acrobatic leap that missed his hairline by mere fractions. "Why were you in Sodom?"

"I have friends there." He swallowed the torrent back down, tried to be more... professionally angelic. "Very nice people. They invited me for lunch."

Crawly nodded, in a musing sort of way. "Don't suppose one of those friends was named Lot? Nah, on second thought, no - 'nice people' doesn't sound like Lot." A thought occurred to him then. "Do you think he was taken?"

"I don't know, I don't know any Lot," he said miserably, but even then, he remembered what Keret had said. "Is he wealthy?"

"Is Lot wealthy? Do sheep have fur?"

"I rather think sheep have wool, don't they?"

"Wool, fur, whatever - body hair." Crawly wisped his hand around in the air. "The answer is _yes_, angel, Lot is disgustingly wealthy."

"Then we can be rather certain they took him."

"Excellent!"

"Really now, you might not like him, but it's _hardly _appropriate to-"

"He's Abram's nephew, angel!" Crawly saw the lack of recognition on his face and took a step forward in the diagram, urging him on with excited hands. "Abram, son of Terah? From Ur in Elam? Abram Walk-all-the-way-to-Egypt-and-catfish-the-Pharaoh-for-riches? _That _Abram. Your lot favours him, don't they?"

"Oh. Oh, that Abram. Yes, I do believe there are plans for him, uh..." He wasn't supposed to tell the Opposition that, was he? Oh bother. But Crawly already knew, so no harm done, technically. "How come you know about that?"

The demon rolled his eyes. "Have you ever met an old man who _didn't _talk about his own importance at every odd hour? If I were Lot I would've left, too. Anyway, here's the sweet part: what if..."

There was a thing Crawly could do with his voice, a certain drop of pitch that tasted of temptation and original sin, that would make Aziraphale think of lush crushed-nut pastries drizzled with fragrant honey. He'd feel the sweetness of it on his tongue, the whisper of gooseflesh on his skin, and he'd swallow. Hungrily.

"What if," Crawly said, and Aziraphale's breath shuddered on his lips, "Abram finds out his nephew has been kidnapped? Bet he wouldn't like that. He's got quite a number of people in his camp, too."

"He's got barely 300, that's not enough to challenge an army," he managed to say. Temptation. This was temptation, and he was an angel, and he would thwart it with detached reason and rational thinking.

"Enough for an ambush," Crawly responded easily, with a casual sway from side to side like a snake charmed by a flute. "Strike at night, when the soldiers sleep. Strike from multiple directions, keep them confused. Fight smart, not fair."

It didn't seem... right. Seemed underhanded, even. But Aziraphale had seen Keret hold his son's bloodied head to his chest and scream the loss of his family at the heavens, and that was not right either. Not at all.

"It... could work, I suppose."

"It _will _work." The intensity in Crawly's eyes made them glow, like sunlight dancing in shallow waters. Breathtaking. Magnetic. Beautiful. "Because any and all miracles you perform to ensure it does will be motivated by you protecting Heaven's chosen, not by something as selfish as saving your friends."

Aziraphale looked like he'd been caught red-handed with murder.

"Come on, angel, there's nothing _bad _about saving people! I'd have my own throne Below if I could figure out how to turn that into a bad thing! You're not actually doing anything wrong, are you? Right? Selfish but not wrong. Your interests just happen to align with theirs: everyone wins in the end, nothing they can complain about."

Aziraphale _had _been horrified at the thought that he was about to manipulate humans for selfish ends. But he had also caught himself thinking that Crawly had beautiful eyes and, as far as Heaven was concerned, that was probably worse.

He chewed his lip, eyes fixed on the ground. Maybe he should have indulged at least a few more of the protection rites. Not that that would help now. But what Crawly had said... _would _help. Would help a lot of humans, Abram included. The Patriarch-to-be would win favour with the local tribes. The reputation of Heaven's chosen would reach far, and carry weight. Could they complain about that...?

"No they can't, can they..." He looked up at Crawly again and, ever so hesitantly, smiled. A smile of hope, wide and open, with gratitude glinting at the edges. "You really are a wily serpent, you. I mean - you're good at your work. Which is not good, but-" Oh bother. "I appreciate your advice, Crawly. You've been very helpful, ah... ta-ta then!"

He gave a jerky wave of his hand, and brushed a foot over the sigils.

* * *

Crawly stumbled into a wash basin when the diagram jostled him back to his inn. Bloody summoning. Bloody legs. Who thought of legs in the first place? And who decided humans should have the most unbalanced leg-to-body construction of all blessed animals?

"Ta-ta?" He gripped the sides of the basin to steady it - steady himself - and glared at the scattered image of his face in the upset water. "What kind of a greeting is that? Urgh."

He scooped a handful of water and tried to rub the taste of soot off his tongue. He hadn't seen the fires, or even the city, but the air had been thick with it. Must've burnt down almost the whole thing, then. Nothing like a good fire to teach rebellious upstarts.

Crawly stared at his fractured face in the basin. Summoning always came as a surprise, but what he had not been prepared for was being summoned by the angel. Or seeing the parade of emotion on his face. The Flood had been an upsetting experience, yes, but it hadn't broken through like this. There hadn't been _tears _streaking his face.

A tug in Crawly's gut agreed that that was also an upsetting experience.

The angel hadn't felt right about the Flood any more than he had. But Aziraphale had faith, something Crawly hadn't had for a good many years, and he wouldn't question the way Crawly did. And yet. He had called on a demon for aid.

And he had smiled.

That tug felt much different. It was a tug that, if Crawly had still had hands that could birth stars, would have tempted him to make the brightest, most stunning nebula and gift it to Aziraphale.

"What were You thinking when You made him?" He glanced over his shoulder, asking the void that no longer gave a damn about his questions. If She ever had. "He's a disaster of an angel. Just, look at him. Gives away his sword, goes around asking demons how to save people. I bet most of his miracle quota goes towards keeping himself from discorporating out of pure..." Stupidity. "Carelessness."

What had Heaven been thinking, assigning someone like him to Earth? He was too soft by far - too trusting, too caring. There were humans that could eat him for breakfast and pick their teeth with his bones. Not that that was any of Crawly's concern, as a demon. No, for him it was all advantage. If his sworn enemy was a soft, fussy thing like Aziraphale there would be practically no interference at all. Other angels would have smitten him into oblivion long ago. Other angels would never have come to him for advice, either. Or sheltered him under their wing.

None of them would have smiled at him like that.

"So." He eyed his reflection: the water was finally settling down enough for him to have one. "The angel is in Sodom." Yes. True. His reflection was as communicative as the starry void. "That's not too far from here." Also true. Would burn his tongue, soon, speaking this much truth. "I could be there by tomorrow afternoon."

He could, but what for? A whole day on the road just to... check how things went? Say hi? See if maybe he could coax a smile like that again?

"All questions and no bloody answers," Crawly muttered. He was monologuing. Again. Great. "He's gonna worry his fluffy little head." He shoved himself away from the wash basin, paced an aimless, irregular orbit about the room. If he was going to condemn himself to a whole day on a donkey's back, he was going to have a blessed good reason for it. "He's not used to bending the rules. He's gonna feel bad for it and fret about what Upstairs thinks. He might need a..." Moral support? From a demon? "Need a..." He flitted his hands about in the air, looking for a suitable word.

* * *

"Date?"

"What? You can't seriously- Oh." Aziraphale noticed the basket of dates Crawly carried on his hip. And the fruit he held out towards him. "Thank you." He accepted the date. "I didn't know you were in town? Wouldn't have gone through the trouble of summoning you, if I'd known you were nearby, I mean. I hear it's terribly..." He had never actually been summoned, but made a vague face to illustrate how he thought it might feel.

"Like being tugged out of your skin and put back upside down - can't recommend. Nah, I wasn't too far away, and I figured - if you needed more advice I'd rather be here in person than do that again. So how'd it go?"

"Well..." Aziraphale clasped his hands, and beamed.

The sun draped pinks and golds over the walls as Sodom laid itself to rest before their little hill. They had found a miraculously lush patch of grass at the top of it, and it was just as miraculously free of ants: the perfect place to sit down and share a meal. Sitting wasn't quite the word for what Crawly was doing, but it was the closest approximate. Aziraphale performed a commendable example of sitting, back straight, and was once again giving one of his Heavenly reports. But he didn't stutter as he spoke, and his fidgeting was the relaxed, absentminded strum of a fussy angel who was, for once, quite pleased. The basket of dates between them helped, if Crawly were to make a guess - the little noises the angel made when he ate them were pleased indeed.

Aziraphale told him how he had disguised himself as a human and pretended to have escaped from the Elamites to tell the story. How Abram had roused his men and given chase, split up and attacked in the dark of night just as Crawly had suggested. The cheer and praise as Abram had returned to Sodom with the hostages still rose from within the walls, like the scent of myrrh and sandalwood sacrificed to the gods; even in a city sacked and burnt there were instruments, and music, and song.

"Quite the story, 'at." Crawly grinned, and felt like that nebula he couldn't make still burned somewhere within him, bright and warm. "I should've brought wine instead. Bet they're toasting down there."

"I do hope so," he said fondly. They deserved a good celebration. Thirteen years is a long time, for humans. The Eastern wind might one day blow across the plains again but, for now, it had been resolutely chased away. "I was quite shaken, you know. I couldn't see how it all could possibly end well - these things usually don't, I mean. But it did." He smiled, heartily and freely, and it felt good to be able to do that. "In no small part thanks to you. Truly a stroke of luck, you knowing Abram's nephew lives there."

The demon gave him a sideways look, and a rather amused one.

"You really don't know what Sodom is famous for, do you?"

"Well, they make the finest pottery this side of the Himalayas."

"They have the most liberal marriage laws this side of the Himalayas. It's not adultery if it's with another man, or if his wife takes a mistress. I told Lot about that - thought that if he could have what he really wanted he might stop punishing his wife for not being what he wanted." He shrugged, a motion that looked more like a snake's curling and uncurling than something a human could do. "Turns out I'm not as good at tempting as I thought."

"Oh I'm sure you're an excellent tempter." The words formed in his mouth yet he felt them in his gut, where they did things to his anatomy that he didn't quite understand.

"I'm a excellent nuisance. Not really into the corrupting souls thing on the whole," he admitted. "I did tempt an angel once, though." The look on Aziraphale's face smeared a wide grin over his lips. "Just yesterday, in fact."

"You didn't tempt me." The angel shot him his most disapproving glare.

"Not even a little?" Crawly tilted his head with the smile of someone who knows he's right and knows it will never be acknowledged.

Aziraphale couldn't glare more disapprovingly than he already did. Moreover, Crawly's smile seemed to make his gut anatomy even more confused.

"I acted for a good cause," he said primly, breaking eye contact. "And I only asked you for advice how to do something I had already resolved to do."

"Sounds like temptation to me. The seed is already there: as a demon you just pour water on it. S'like gardening. Water, wait, watch it grow." Oh. His quick, stupid mouth again. The angel had stiffened, and worry clouded the shifting blue of his eyes. "Though I suppose the joke's on me. I'm not supposed to tempt people to do _good_, am I? That's what you do. Inspire virtue and such."

"Well - one tries. Some humans seem to have a natural inclination for it, as if the taste of that apple never truly left their tongue; as if they not only know good from evil but are compelled by instinct - guided by an inner light - to choose good. For others it's an uphill struggle, a constant battle against their wants, but once they stand at the summit of that mountain, Heaven will measure their reward from each foot climbed."

Aziraphale seemed pleased with his observations, and a lot less stiff, as he treated himself to another date. Crawly pursed his lips in contemplation. There was a lot to contemplate in what the angel had said, but some aspects inspired more contemplation than others.

"Doesn't that depend on how big their feet are, then?"

"Pardon?"

"They climb up the mountain, but whose foot is the measure?"

"I believe that's metaphorical. The climb from a lower level of morality to a higher isn't actually measured in feet."

"What do you measure it in, then? S'there a standard unit of virtue?"

"I think it's more of a... a ratio. If you start out low, you can get comparatively higher than someone who began their climb at a more advantageous starting point. That's why humans like Lot are technically in a better position than those who do good from the beginning. Their struggle is greater, so their achievement in overcoming it is greater, too."

"There's nothing virtuous about Lot, angel," Crawly groused. "He's a prick."

"He's loyal."

"He's afraid. If he took a lover and his people found out he'd be dragged out of Sodom and pelted with rocks till he's oatmeal porridge. He's afraid and he's ashamed, and that's as effective for decision making as virtue is."

"Well..." His gut presented him a new, equally confusing sensation, and Aziraphale wondered quietly if his corporation was susceptible to food poisoning. "As long as they make the right choices," he responded resolutely.

"Shouldn't they be making the right choice for the right reasons, though? If they make the right decision for the wrong reason, does it still count as good? I mean, is good good if it's by accident? How would it count if they had good intentions but the end result was bad? On second thought, don't answer that." Crawly waved the questions and their potential answers out of the air. "I'm saving that for the future. It's got potential, I can tell - you wouldn't believe how agitated humans can get over philosophical dilemmas. They still haven't gotten over the hen and the egg."

"I like eggs. You can do so many things with eggs. Boiled, fried, poached - all kinds of omelettes, and they give a lovely surface texture to baked goods."

"No need to tempt you, you hedonist."

"Hedonist? Me?" Aziraphale looked positively shocked.

"Finest example of gluttony I ever saw," Crawly grinned.

"It's not gluttony," he insisted, with the delicate prickliness of a startled porcupine. "I'm blending in. Humans do notice if you don't eat for days - it's not like I'm frivolously indulging in earthly pleasures. I'm not a demon."

"I frivolously indulge in earthly pleasures?"

Aziraphale preferred not to think about that. He wasn't wrong, not at all: Crawly did indulge in earthly pleasures, but he was quickly realising that his preference lay in ethereal pleasures, such as needling angels for reactions. Fair, blonde angels in particular. Their skin carried blush like fields carried freshly flowering poppies.

"I would assume so. Sin and corruption are a demon's trade. Never deny yourselves anything you want, I imagine." Aziraphale had aimed for contemptuous but somehow managed flustered, and he wasn't sure how that happened.

Crawly graciously refrained from commenting on the noises the angel made when he stuffed his face with fresh fruit and not a human in sight. But he was a demon, and therefore could not refrain entirely from glancing at the angel with the cheekiest of smiles.

"Oh I don't know about that..." he murmured, and went back to watching the sun pull deepening violet over the city.

The dusk turned brighter than day. It lasted a single heartbeat: suspended in time, Sodom painted a sharp, screaming black silhouette against the light before the white flare swallowed it entirely.

The shock wave hit them seconds later. Crawly had enough time to think of all the paperwork Below would put him through to get a new body, and more than enough time to think there might be nothing left of him to stuff into a body. The force of the smiting knocked him to the ground, scattered the dates, _sublimated _the vegetation around them and vibrated through teeth and bone. But the sensation of disintegrating out of existence in a trillion burning particles never came.

Sodom was a tower of white flame when he blinked his eyes open. A pillar to hold up heaven, crowned by a mourning veil of brimstone and sharp tektite glass that rained down on the crumbling city. It was a vision Crawly hadn't seen since the Beginning, and then only from the inside. Never seen it in panoramic view. Never seen the glare of divine judgement catch in pure white wings that shielded him from the blast.

"Angel..." He shut his mouth so fast he almost bit his tongue. Aziraphale couldn't be allowed to hear him breathe the word like that. Like a reverie. Like a supplication.

"Stay where you are, dear. Best not get too close to that."

He looked like a statue carved out of lightning, Crawly thought dumbly. Burning white like a newborn star. Nothing soft or fussy about him.

Crawly wasn't sure whether he still had legs or if they'd just gone as weak and boneless as his snake body. Not that it mattered: he was on the ground, and Aziraphale was standing above him, between him and the blazing destruction. Like a statue, yes. Like a rock on which faith could be built.

What was God thinking when She made him?

Aziraphale's wings spread wide, enormous, and left Crawly with his questions on the bare hilltop. He hissed, about to get back up on his feet when he thought better of it and concentrated, gathered his shape around him and moulded those unwieldy legs and arms back into his lithe, scaly body. He could only go so far before the scorch of holiness began to whittle away at him, but this way he wouldn't be spotted.

He hid among the blackened shrubs and the twitching shadows, as close as he dared, more questions than usual bristling in his head. They couldn't have figured out his involvement, could they? No. Angels weren't given to suspicion, not nearly as much as they ought to be. And he hadn't actually _done _anything. Had the kidnapping been part of some new grand plan they had, and Aziraphale's intercession had wasted it? Hardly - if that business with the drowning of kids was anything to go by, they were quite good at telling Aziraphale which disasters not to avert.

Because he _would _avert them. Because at his core, in the blaze of the Word the Almighty had breathed into him when he was formed, Aziraphale was a guardian. A shield, not a sword.

More questions, terrible questions, questions sticking in his throat like fish bones as he curled tighter around the sudden ache in his gut.

Crawly could make out three winged silhouettes against the inferno. Snakes didn't see well. They didn't hear well either, bloody misconfiguration of an animal. They knew the world through _smell_, and _taste_, and were thoroughly unsuited to spying on anything except perfumers.

What would he even do? If things went pear shaped? If two Archangels decided a Principality needed a reminder not to overstep his bounds, what could one measly demon do?

Why would a demon do _anything_? For an angel?

Crawly flicked his tongue, tossed his silent swearing in with the sulphur-thick air. He _would _do anything for this angel, Heaven and Hell be blessed.

One of the shadows stuttered the unmistakable, nervous body language of Aziraphale. The others were responding in much calmer, moderated gestures, until the shape of Aziraphale went entirely still. Every muscle in Crawly's long body spring-coiled, ready to dash forward.

A single beam of light broke the churning sky, and the Archangels vanished with it. Aziraphale remained, still, gazing at the inferno. He seemed small. Smaller. As if some part of him had vanished with the divine light after all.

When he eventually turned and walked away, he walked like a man who didn't care if his feet took him over the edge of a cliff.

"Angel?" The word came out garbled mid-way through his transformation as he stumbled on his too-long legs. "What happened?"

Aziraphale seemed not to hear, at first. His eyes were distant. Hollow. He swallowed several times before he found his voice and when he did, it was thin and brittle.

"They came to verify I hadn't wrought any undue miracles. Asked Lot to tell them what had happened." A small, terrible attempt at a smile twitched on his lips; Crawly wanted to tear up the earth and the sky and rain molten iron on whoever had put such a smile on the angel's face. "It all checked out, of course. Nothing wrong, everything accounted for. It was the citizens who were- who were hostile towards them." Tremor crept into his voice, and the flat, hollow look in his eyes began to crack. "Said things and made threats."

He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut around everything that threatened to come tumbling out.

"They've been through war, Crawly. They've been through terrible things and their loved ones have been hurt and they really just attack in self-defence." His hand trembled, too, when he wiped at his treacherous tears. "I know what Sandalphon and Gabriel think of humans. I know what they- how they would have looked, to the Sodomites. I _know_, but when I tried to explain it to them he said- Gabriel said-"

Whatever Gabriel had said, Crawly would crush his bones and burn the dust.

"He said _I've been to war, too, and I don't feel the slightest desire to smite fellow angels_." There was a look in Aziraphale's eyes, beyond the tears: an icy flash of righteous fury from an angel who had also fought a war, and who did not currently share Gabriel's sentiment about smiting. "He said they were simply wicked, and that an example must be made."

Crawly's face twisted, memories gritting their teeth in still-open wounds. He had been through war, too. Had been stricken to the ground, had looked up at white wings and angels haloed in divine judgement, and he had seen the _triumph _in their eyes.

"Maybe I did the wrong thing." The burning behind Aziraphale's eyes died down as quickly as it had flared up. "Maybe I shouldn't have- I meddled, and it only made things worse, I shouldn't-"

"What, should never do a good deed ever again? No. _No, _Aziraphale. You're an angel, Hell's sssake!" He was back to hissing, and he didn't care. He wanted to hold the angel, to comfort him as human mothers comforted their young. He also knew, with painful awareness, that he was a demon, and that soothing somebody's pain would not be interpreted as kindness. "You have to believe good things will come from good deeds - faith, that's faith, your lot's sssupposed to have a ton of that, right? You can't let pricks like Gabriel put you down for helping those in need! That'sss your goddamn _job!_"

"But he's right." The angel tried to swallow the hiccups, swallow the tears and put himself back together. "He's right. They are given the choice of how to use Her gift. They are to be tested, they are... to be judged for their actions. Gabriel knows that." The pieces didn't fit right. They left jagged edges that hurt to watch, because anyone with eyes and ears could tell those bits did not fit together.

Crawly had plenty of experience with pain, being Fallen and all. But the pain of watching Aziraphale recite Heavenly doctrine at himself was different. It made him wish he was back up there so he could set the whole blessed place on fire and Fall _properly. _With a smile on his lips, not this bitter taste of bile that only got more bitter as he was reminded, once again, why good intentions didn't matter.

Between a demon and an Archangel, whose word would people believe?

"Doesss he?" he muttered, at long last. Teeth crunching against ill-fitting shards and jagged edges, he muttered at the voracious flames.

Did Gabriel know what that was like? Did any angel with their wings still white know what that was like?

Aziraphale didn't respond. Maybe he didn't even hear. Crawly didn't push for an argument; his anger had fizzled out, like an oil lamp left in rain, leaving behind a numb ache and no energy for pushing a discussion.

The sky descended on their silence. It came slowly, at first. Thick, sticky flakes of ash, soot, and sulphur that sought their way back to the familiar earth. It would blacken the land for miles in all directions, turn the fertile soil into dead, barren dust. The salt that had been launched into the air from the Dead Sea would kill all seeds and roots. Nothing could live there anymore, and nothing would live there for hundreds of years to come.

There was a soft rustle when Crawly let his wings manifest. Not words, not touch, but something he hoped the angel would understand anyway. Hesitantly, he extended a wing. A moment passed. Silent. Frayed around the edges. Then Aziraphale inched in under his feathers.

They watched, together, as Sodom was erased from history.

Crawly remembered Heaven. Remembered not fitting, remembered "rebelling" - not _for _Lucifer's cause, but definitely _against _what Heaven was. He saw it in Aziraphale, too. In his furtive kindness, in his hard-suppressed instinct to protect: in everything he was that didn't fit what Heaven stood for.

What had She been thinking, making him like that? What had Heaven been thinking, putting him on earth?

Crawly? Crawly was thinking of shields.

In a world of swords and fire, what you really needed - what everyone needed - was a shield.

"_I'll find you._" He flexed his primaries carefully, not letting a single black flake of ash touch the angel's robes."_Wherever you are, whenever you need me, I'll find you._"

* * *

**A/N**

There are only a handful of known Canaanite names to pick from so they're all named after Ugarit kings and legends, sorry.

**"He's taller: closer to the heavens."** There's a great many goddesses that were or became the same deity, one of which is Astoreth, who is regarded as a Canaanite version of Ishtar, who in turn is conflated with Inanna. Innana, in particular, has a vengeful streak and did on one occasion smite a mountain for challenging her authority by being too high.

**Candle clocks** were one of the ancient ways of measuring time.

**Tributes** \- I live under a rock for the most part, so I've never read or watched Hunger Games. My beta, Fox, alerted me that the talk of paying tribute would kickstart Hunger Games associations so here I am, relic of my time, waving an apologetic hand that no, I'm not referring to the Hunger Games. I'm referring to the very old and very morally questionable practice of a region being forced to pay money to a ruler as a gesture of submission, or allegiance, in return for not being attacked. Protection money, if you will.

Look me in the eye and tell me Crowley didn't invent moral and philosophical dilemmas. Literally invented them. We've been asking ourselves these questions for millennia but he asked them before time began. The bastard would know if egg or hen came first, too.

**Abram Walk-all-the-way-to-Egypt-and-catfish-the-Pharaoh-for-riches** is the story of when Abram and Sarah lived in Egypt for a little while, to escape famine. Sarah was beautiful, and Abram was afraid that men would kill him and marry his wife, so they pretended Sarah was his sister instead. This got awkward when the Pharaoh began making eyes at her and gifted Abram with loads of cattle to get on his good side. The Pharaoh was understandably upset when he learnt that Abram and Sarah were in fact married, and demanded they leave his country immediately. They got to keep all the cattle, though.

**Why is Lot a prick?** Lot immigrated to Sodom from Ur, a city that may or may not have been in the kingdom of Elam because mapping country borders 3000 years back is not an exact science. Genesis places Ur in Chaldea (~1100-600 BC), which didn't exist at the estimated time of the destruction of Sodom (~1700 BC), so I took liberties with that. Being from Elam is not what makes Lot a prick, that's just something that's interesting to note in the context of Sodomites having been occupied by Elamites for 13 years, and being suspicious of Lot's odd guests. (This is where the 13 year time-skip is, mind. Between Abram saving the kidnapped Sodomites and angels showing up to smite them. As far as googling gets me, this would have continued to be a turbulent time with warring over the fertile region where the Five Cities were located. So we can assume "more of the same" in these 13 years.) In the Bible, the damning evidence against the population of Sodom is how a group of men gather outside Lot's house demanding to know his angelical guests in the Biblical sense. Lot, as the good husband and father he is, instead offers them to r*pe his two young daughters. They refuse the offer and promise Lot he will be treated even worse than his guests. Which I think sounds pretty reasonable, as far as anything in this chapter of the Bible is reasonable.

**Have we found Sodom yet?** There's been many candidates but one that looks really promising is a place called Tall el-Hammam, just north of the Dead Sea. The walls were indeed huge, measured approximately 15 m high, 30 m thick at the widest base and 8 m wide at the top. (Or 49 ft high, 99 ft wide at the base and 26 ft at the top.) It was a prosperous city state. What destroyed Tall el-Hammam - and pretty much everything in the 25 square km surrounding area - was a meteor air burst. Supporting evidence for this is that the damage to the structures is directional, as if they had been hit with a great shock wave rather than fire or an earthquake, and there's been molten rock and tektite glass discovered at the site that supports a momentary super heating of several thousand degrees. The once-fertile plains were then rendered barren when the salt blasted out of the Dead Sea mingled with the soil, and the area went uninhabited for approximately 700 years.

"Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land." -Genesis 19:24-25


	2. Chapter 2

This wasn't supposed to have any more chapters but I simply must share this gem that's been hidden in the review section, since I can't respond to anonymous reviews. Might be a troll, who knows, who cares, I'm a writer and you can't dangle something like this in front of me and expect me not to bite.

/Dimwit

* * *

_Not important __chapter 1 . Jan 28 _

_Wow. You managed to miss literally *everything* about Sodom (and Gomorrah) that's relevant in the Bible, and why God ultimately destroyed them. Did the war you described happen? Yes. But that makes no difference, because God didn't destroy the cities due to 'understandable hostility when faced with strangers after cruel occupation.' When you actually READ that part of the Bible, it says quite plainly that God would have spared both cities - at Abram's request, because he BEGGED God not to destroy them - had there been fifty righteous people. Then 25. Then ten. Then five. Then one. God would have spared both cities had one single righteous person been found there._

_And there wasn't. Not a single, God-fearing and God-following person existed in the entire population of either city._

_Sodom and Gomorrah were cesspits of lawlessness, sexual immorality, and blasphemy. Having 'the most liberal minded marriage laws' isn't a commendation or okay, and it is not what God intended for marriage. And that doesn't even touch the rest of it; it's just the thing you made a specific point of. And so, because the inhabitants of both cities had given themselves completely over to immorality in every conceivable form, and subsequently refused to repent and turn to God, He destroyed them._

_This story is a shame to see, because you are a very talented writer, and your OCs were well-written and characterized. But your premise, unfortunately, is flawed. And I know this review will likely either make you roll your eyes before you delete it or cause blinding rage, and that's fine; I'm not looking for a debate and I don't think you are either. But I still needed to write this, because your historical research might be spot-on, but you missed everything that actually matters, and that's . . . a waste of a truly excellent talent._

Crowley squinted at the computer screen. Fanfiction dot net was one of his first true masterpieces on the internet, but it always jolted his senses to be so violently thrown back to the 90's. Weird decade, the 90's. Heaven and Hell still hadn't settled on who _really _invented the furbies.

"I don't quite..." Aziraphale began, but tapered off into wringing his hands. "Well, I understand what it _says_, but doesn't it seem a bit, you know? Did they miss the part about fanfiction being a transformative art? Not any sort of... canonical doctrine?"

"I think the best part is they missed that Dimwit can read. That it would be some sort of mistake that they diverged from the Biblical narrative. Did you know they went to Sunday school as a kid?"

Aziraphale's fidgeting skidded to a halt, as much as fidgeting can be said to develop any of the velocity needed to skid.

"They did? Could never have guessed."

"Growing up in a religious environment doesn't mean you can't question it." Crowley shrugged in that particular, jointless way you can only pull off if, at some point in your existence, you have been transformed into a snake. "I mean, if you think about it, Good Omens is a story about questioning and challenging the narrative you've been presented. So it's not really an odd framework to use for fics that aim to reinterpret the old canon."

"It did represent you as a sympathetic, rather good person, even if you're said to be evil in every canonical source." Aziraphale hummed to himself, a nice little placeholder for everything he declined to mention about how angels and presumably good characters were represented in the book. "Suppose it would be more odd if Good Omens attracted people who can't stomach reinterpretations of the Biblical narrative."

"S'all subjective what people notice in stories, though," Crowley chimed in blithely. "Perhaps they missed that part."

"Perhaps they can't read?" he suggested with the infinite sympathy of an angel who has a love for books and a keen appreciation for misinformative Bibles.

"Nah. They can read. They noticed that Dimwit is a talented writer, didn't they?"

"Hmm." The angel pursed his lips, pondering. "Well. I guess, in the end, it's all simply ineffable, then."

"Very ineffable."


End file.
